October’s Shadows

October’s Shadows is an RPG where players portray characters live in an aristocratic mansion in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. Each character is defined by their political affiliations and social class in additional to more traditional RPG attributes. These facts are generally expected to be the most crucial facets of their stories.

“How can you make a revolution without executions?”
-an outraged Lenin in October on hearing that the Soviet had abolished the death penalty.

In October 1918, Russia was in a fervor of famine, war and revolution. Throughout the month the outcome of events was fragile and uncertain, a thousand turning points passing every day.

At the end of that month the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government, and began the chain of events that led to the Soviet Union. At first, their grip on power was tenuous, dependent on the consent of a hundred different organizations, but little by little power was concentrated, first in the soviets, then in the Party, and finally in the iron grip of a supreme leader.

But at the same time there was nothing inevitable about any of this. It was simply the result of those turning points and the ruthlessness of those Bolsheviks in perceiving and seizing them.

This game begins with those events, throwing the characters together in an aristocratic mansion in the heart of Moscow. Their struggles are the struggles of Russia?s people; their ideologies are proxies for the ideologies of the people. The characters struggle for power, influence and ideology as events pressure them to take a stand on events as they unfold. They may not affect its course, but the judgment of the revolution lies in their hands.

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